****

Moonlit Echo

To become part of the Lunar guard you had to undergo rigorous training.

Rigorous was defined as nearly a full year of constant training, only two weeks off for holidays, that left fifty weeks of ten hour days. We had hoof to hoof fighting daily, spear handling, and ceremonial training. If you were defeated more than seventy percent of the time you out of the program, it was a weak sixty percent loss ratio for the Solar guard. And ponies wondered why invasions happened during the day in Equestria! Sorry, hedging aside we train every day for most of a year before we are allowed to serve as part of the Lunar guard.

I had somehow made it into her personal guard, or to the citizen I was one of twelve recruits handpicked by the Princess of the Night herself. As a Thestral it was a point of pride to be part of the Lunar guard even more of a honor to be a part of her personal guard, it meant I could handle anything.

Which is why this is incredibly embarrassing.

The Princess sends me out to ‘check on’ that ‘Alicorn’ stallion that suddenly appeared. Was I doubtful? Tartarus yes, I don’t believe for one second that this isn’t a plot to take over Equestria. It is a coincidence that just over three months after the Changelings failed to overthrow the diarchy a Alicorn stallion appears…Right after a population crisis is uncovered…And there are no Alicorn stallions to continue the line.

The picture is pretty clear to me: the Changeling King is trying his hand at taking over the country.

So I was off to ‘check on’ this fake Alicorn when this storm straight out of Everfree Forest rolls in. The best way to describe Everfree forest is…Well: crazy. The magic there is wild and practically untameable. It is so dangerous that it is actually part of the final exam to join any branch of the guards. Bad ponies and Bad creatures alike call that place home of all things. However for some reason the weather from there has decided to take a vacation, unfortunately it choose the same spot I did: Minotaria.

I thought I could handle this rain storm, but the way in moved in under fifteen minutes left me with little time to brace myself.

So here I am now, clutching to some farmer’s chimney like a weak little foal. Which I am clearly not, it’s just, this wind isn’t like anything I have had to fly against before. Sure we had some extreme flight exercises, flying through small twisters and strong gusts, but those winds weren’t strong enough to literally push you backwards. No matter which way I tilted my wings I was just blown back.

It was almost like the weather was trying to tell me something.

Giving up wasn’t in my protocol, something had caused a ‘great disturbance’ when the princess went to view his dreams last night, and that something wasn’t going to just go away if my mission meant anything-

“AHHH!” A shovel flew up from the ground almost hit me in the head. I know it was just wind but… “BUCK YOU TOO WIND!” I felt a little better now.

Rain continued to pelt me, producing a dull ringing in my ears as it hit my light armor in a continuous beat. My mane was plastered to my coat which despite being covered in armor was also soaked, and my saddle bags were lost somewhere in the field below.

So far my first solo mission was starting out very bad, a big fail, and my immediate future wasn’t looking any better.

It had to have been hours since I first began hugging this chimney, really I had given up paying attention to the time, and my watch was in my bag. My arms were beginning to go numb and I was starting to worry about my safety.

While the rain had been a minor annoyance before, it was now a very real problem, or should I say the rising water. Yes, what had begun as puddles grew to small ponds, those ponds grew and grew. In fact the water is still growing as I am talking. It was halfway up the one story house now.

How long would it take for the water to reach my vantage point?

Wait a second…Why was no pony exiting the house?

Horse apples! Don’t tell me they are asleep still?!

No.

Not letting go of this chimney, I might-

They might drown.

In training protecting the civilians is priority number one, even for the princess’s personal guards, they would send to look after the citizens rather than themselves. Even though they aren’t citizens of Equestria, I can’t just turn my back on them, not when they are unaware of the danger. All I have to do is wake them up, that’s it, and then they should be fine.

Detaching my weary arms from the chimney, I slid down the thatched roof. My wings staying hugged to my body as I fell, landing in the oddly freezing waters. It was summer! Where did such cold water come from?!

Well, complaining wasn’t going to rescue the inhabitants, so I started to paddle to the house. Paddling in armor, even light armor meant for stealth, is quite an exercise. It tried to drag me down as waves started to form. I swam wearily to the door, it was a doggie paddle that would have made the captain send me back to training. But it was the best I could give right now.

The windows were dark and the door was pressed closed from the water pressure, I almost thought that no one was home till I heard a creak from inside.

“Hello? Is any pony in there?! It’s flooding out here you have to leave!”

A creak sounded from inside.

Of course they would be deep sleepers! Although, it could have been the howling wind or the pounding of the rain, but most noise was drowned out here, a great chaotic mess of noise.

But I couldn’t ignore that creak, someone was in there.

With the pressure of the water on the door it was impossible to open, that only left the window. There wasn’t anything around me to break it with, the tools floated away or flung away by the wind long ago, and that meant it was just what I had left on me. That wasn’t much, since I was out of country I wasn’t permitted from carrying my usual spear, or regular helmet…But my helmet was still metal.

Time was slipping away as the frigid water continued to rise; looking away as the glass went flying out, I quickly entered the farm house. I didn’t have time to pay attention to details of the first Minotarian house I had ever been in but I did notice a doorway leading to the back, another room. I doggy paddled my aching arms towards it, up and over the angry water.

“BUCK ME!”

A smug creak answered back.

The water started churning faster as I entered the room, face to face with the sleeping citizen, the reason I was risking my tail in this storm, and…It was a rocking chair.

I had risked my life for a piece of furniture.

Just buck my life, I still wasn’t anywhere near the coast and-

It creaked again, mocking me, and forcing me to take a deep breath. This wasn’t so bad, Luna would laugh her head off when-No, if I told her. But I had a mission to do-

“Ahhh!” I couldn’t help but yell as a wave picked me and almost scrapped my wings against the ceiling. This was getting crazy, I couldn’t fly and now the water was getting violent.

Making my way out of the room I was thrown up a couple more times by the waves, each time closer and closer to the ceiling, wait…Ceiling! That’s it! Not rafters, but a ceiling, there was an attic then. In the dim light I searched the ceiling, but I couldn’t see a thing in-

A flash lit up the room, illuminating a darker square in the ceiling. Yahtzee!

Riding the waves I made it to the attic entrance and tugged it open, just as the stairs dropped down a wave slammed into me. My mouth filled with water, eyes scrunched shut, and my ears folded back.

They don’t prepare you for this in training.

Rumbles and grumbles echoed above me as the waves receded, slowing slightly, and I took advantage of that. As swiftly as I could in my harried state I clamored up the ladder to the attic. Pulling the ladder up just as quickly and slamming the hatch shut behind me.

The attic was small, dusty, and almost exactly like my grandpa’s. A small slated window illuminated the area, showing that there were boxes and boxes of old memorabilia, some old tools, and what I assume was a old calf’s bed occupying this space with me.

Dear Luna what have I gotten myself into?!

****

Princess Celestia

“While we think the first amendment is commendable, truly a generous and noble change that will not only bring about more foals but change the economic balance for the better. That one was applauded.” The five remaining members of the Royal Legal team gave a polite round of applause, before looking to their chairpony, “Although, we do have concerns with the other amendments that were proposed.” Quick Quill paused in his speech and looked at me. I smiled wider at the suited stallion. It didn’t take a law degree to know where he was going with this. “Reviewing the ‘Artificial Insemination Clause’ and the ‘Surrogate Mare Clause’ it was unanimously agreed that there are too many risk factors involved with them.”

In…One, two, three, four, and out.

“And what risk factors would those be?” A collected, even pronunciation, no rush, and remember to smile. I could solve this.

Quick Quill smiled, ears twitching, “To put it simply your highness, it all comes down to inheritance and responsibility. Although, Platinum Scale made an excellent point on the psychological strain that surrogates and donors may feel, the surrogates especially, the hormones that would demand a foal to mother when there would be none. The complications this would place on the reading of a will and the additional cost to our health care system-.”

And in and out, slowly, they were just trying to see all the angles on the amendments, that was why I paid them after all.

“I will pay the difference.”

Their jaws dropped for a second before the barrage continued, I resumed my relaxation exercises.

“B-but Princess Celestia think for a second,” Quick Quill started to sweat, “This is more than the money, this is whole families that may need artificial insemination to continue. What if the donating stallion or surrogate mare wants to be part of the family? The civil suits-.”

I closed my eyes and breathed out, steam blowing through my nostrils. It was all bloodlines, money, and titles with some ponies. Where have the days gone when there was comradery among ponies?

Opening them, I fixed my eyes on the leader of this farce. “While I appreciate your thoughts and recommendations on this sensitive matter I’m afraid I’m going to get a second opinion on those clauses,” a round of gasps went throughout the finely furnished room. There was no nicer way to say that the words coming of his mouth were horse apples. We were in a population crisis for crying out loud! The thought of which pony gets what should be the least of their worries now.

“So we wasted our time then? We did all this work for nothing?!”

“Nothing? No, I trust your opinions on this matter and I appreciate all of the time you have taken to review the clauses, but this isn’t the time to be squabbling over possessions and titles. Furthermore I also trust that ponies will take this situation with the utmost seriousness, as we all should be.”

Whispers flew around the room. Purposely ignoring them I focused on a white unicorn stallion, Timely Justice. “What progress has been made with the herd conscription?”

Every pony froze before opening the files that were in front of them, flipping through till there were six very thick bundles of paper looming before me. Just what I needed: more paper.

“The good news is that since you have had herd conscription halt we have had time to review the legitimacy of the reasoning behind that part of the law…” Timely Justice trailed off, blushing and splaying his ears as he looked at the paper in front of him, not quite sure how to say what was written.

Silence stretched and the other members shuffled in their seats.

As I was about to ask if he was okay to continue he started again, “W-well your highness with a average of twenty percent of stallions being fertile, conscripting all the stallions is not a wise idea, from what we can gather the fertility of stallions then was quite different than it is now.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, so it is recommended to permanently remove that clause from the law immediately and dissolve the already conscripted herds if they wish to separate.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” I gave them a wide smile, the type that mother had when I performed a new spell right, I was proud of them. They were learning, slowly, but my ponies were learning an important lesson on duty.

The nobles may flood my courts for a brief time but most of my ponies would be happy and we would be well on our way to getting out of this crisis.

Finally something was going right.

Next on the agenda was tea with Luna, court was closed today and around my many meetings I had secured a full hour to spend some much needed time with my sister.

“Lulu!”

Entering the sunroom I trotted up to my little sister. My forelegs wrapped around her neck, lingering a second before giving a quick nuzzle and sitting down beside her.

“Tia! How were the mules today?”

Picking up my teacup I snorted at her, “They aren’t mules Lulu, although they certainly acted like it at first…” I sighed, “But I think everything is going to get better now. The herd conscription is as good as gone, the first of Ari’s amendments went over wonderfully and I feel the other two will be accepted by tomorrow’s afternoon court session.”

“It was their title loss wasn’t it?” I nodded in response before sipping my tea, a light herbal blend for today. Luna snorted, “Even after a thousand years they still care about their precious titles, you would think after the war that they would see the pointlessness in titles.”

“My thoughts exactly sister, we should renounce our titles too then,” I let a small smirk enter my smile. “To be fair, I mean if they are meaningless-.”

Luna’s feathers ruffled themselves, “I think I get thy point sister, but I just wish that they could see beyond a title to the pony behind it, not just the duke, prince, or princess.”

This was beyond the issue titles now. Few ponies treated us as the ponies we are, and although I have come to terms with that Lulu hasn’t. For her these last couple of years were just a continuation from the snubbing of the nobles from our early years, a thousand years before. She couldn’t hold her tongue sometimes and it had caught up to her, the noble ponies took advantage of her honesty, and as such my sister ended up as a lot of their gossip fodder.

Like many things in my life I should have done more for Lulu.

“Twilight sees you as a pony, the elements of harmony see you as a pony, and so do Cadence and Shinning Armor…Luna it takes time for ponies to see past our title of princess, and it is quite a daunting title.”

“Perhaps…But, you said you needed help responding to Cadence’s letter? What could she have possibly wrote that would be hard to answer?”

I gulped at that, Luna hasn’t had much time to visit with our adopted niece. She doesn’t understand the Princess of Love’s eccentricities. Teleporting the letter onto the table, I sipped my tea as it was read. Her reactions were similar to mine: blushes, splayed ears, and choking.

“Our sweet, little niece wrote that?!”

I nodded, looking down at the letter with a frown. “She’s not so little anymore, unforntunately.”

“She knows we haven’t actually met him right? That marriage isn’t even in the realm of possibility at this point! Ari is more likely to walk out on the meeting than propose to us! How? Why?” She gulped down the rest of her tea, “Is that normal for Cadence?”

“Yes, her title is rather fitting in this case. It is quite literally her magical specialty and we are now her number one targets, no I mean ‘cases’.” I gave a little giggle at that, “The last time she was set on getting two ponies together it was rather humorous though.”

Luna folded her ears back, understandably worried. “Humorous? Pray tell how exactly was her actions laugh worthy?”

“Well, I believe it was five years ago. Cadence had seen the way a guard was gazing at a mare selling flowers with what she swore was a look of ‘longing, desire, and a deep hunger’. Well, to make the story short, by the time she was done helping them see that they loved other there was nearly ten thousand bits worth of damage to repair in Canterlot.” My sister’s mouth began to imitate a fish, “She was using overpowered spells due to her relative inexperience with Alicorn magic…Although, in the end they did fall in love!” Luna groaned, “But it was a year after Cadence gave up and funnily enough it turned out the poor guard was just looking at her flowers with a hunger, not the mare.”

“And she believes he is the one for…” Luna reread the letter, “BOTH of us?!”

“Yes, you see why I needed your help answering her.”

“I think our niece needs our help more…”

****

Shallow Shale

???????

Most contracts are pretty straightforward with how they want their proof of completion. A newspaper article or something physical to identify them usually satisfied the client.

It would have been easy to watch my other paychecks that day had my target been in a public place when I finally killed him. If he had been in the market…The guards would have rushed over, confirmed the death, and the paper would have published his name in the obituary section. Not that I knew his name, but he was very unique so that fact was irrelevant to the contract.

Anyway, his little solo walk was taking him onto private land. For some reason my target felt the need to wander off to a secluded section of the beach, trying to make my job harder most likely.

How would the target know I was trying to kill him? I don’t know but it was the only explanation for his behavior.

All day I had been trying to injure him and he had been dodging the planks, paint cans, and other items I have thrown at him. A slight head duck, sidestep, or hop, he was untouchable! I knew I still had my poisons though and no unicorn could withstand those…

I think you get my point now.

Nopony can just dodge all those projectiles without either being having god on their side or being aware of my attempts, I’m going with the latter. As further proof, when he arrived at the private lagoon he took off his cloak, performed his illusion spell, and puffed out his chest. Trying to look big, he was incredible at illusions; he even made it look like the light reflected off the wings. If Alicorns weren’t in such short supply I might have believed his illusion to be real. That unicorn has serious magic, magic with a capital ‘M’.

So here we are now, my target and I, isolated, in a private area of the beach.

I grabbed one of my empty bags and a knife, as I had said I needed proof for that meathead. Which was easy enough to get, I take something unique to the target, that my client will be sure to recognize. In the past I cut out cutie marks, as they are the easiest to recognize, horns were another favorite of mine. There were also hooves, tails, and heads to take clients. But those were easier to fake and seen as a weak form of proof, easy to fake, yes, even a head. Illusion spells were quite advanced now, grab any old head, and with enough skill it could look like your target. But it was bad business, that’s how to end your career.

His head was a little bulky so I wasn’t going to cut it off, it would splatter, not mention it might enrage my other paychecks.

As I approached I realized his illusion was still on. He wasn’t quite dead yet, I knew I should have tripled his dose. Grabbing another dart, I stabbed his rump with it. Now he had four times the regular lethal dose of curare in his system, it was only a matter of-

This damned stallion doesn’t have a cutie mark! How has he gotten this far and not gotten his cutie mark?

Snorting, I pinned my ears back at his corpse. Even in death my target likes to make my life hard. No matter, I still have other ways to prove his death. Grabbing his tail in my teeth I severed the hair past his tailbone, my knife running through it like paper. A smile broke across my lips, one hundred thousand bits tied up and bagged…Well maybe I better take another form of proof, always have a plan B if possible.

I jumped several feet in the air as something touched my leg.

Looking down I saw his illusion of feathers were fluttering in the wind, and still present- Wait, his illusion of feathers touched me?!

Okay, deep breath. What did that drunken bull say again? The target was crazy, ballsy, a herd stallion and an Alicorn, this was an Alicorn. But…It can’t be! He wasn’t with the princesses in the castle, he wasn’t wearing any regalia, no guards, and he was hiding under a cloak!

My heart was racing now, dropping my hood now I twitched my ears, nothing but the waves. Definitely no guards hiding in the bushes, it was just the body and me.

This was impossible, improbable really. By all rights he shouldn’t exist and he certainly wasn’t a changeling, he would have dropped the disguise…But how?! I tentatively touched his wing, watching his chest. It wasn’t moving. His mane and tail weren’t moving either. He couldn’t be an Alicorn, even if his feathers were as soft a newborn foal’s coat, it didn’t explain the million other reasons why he can’t be one.

Grabbing a mouthful of feathers I tugged them out and placed them with his lock of tail hair in my bag…Maybe he was an Alicorn.

I had just killed an Alicorn.

The only Alicorn Stallion on Equis was dead and I did it…

This job was worth way more than one hundred thousand bits, this was worth at least a million bits if not more. I would be famous, I would…Be sent to the moon, then the sun, before I was beheaded.

Leaving the country sounded very good right now.

Although…Maybe an extra million bits couldn’t hurt, to help pay for my forced seclusion.

I just wish I knew why he was hidden away with some of the most wanted mares on this continent. This whole situation felt like a set up, like a piece of the puzzle was missing.

Wait, if he was a Alicorn, big if still, then that Minotaur is going to want to be absolutely sure he is dead.

Anyone can bring back some hair and feathers, but the horn, that would prove it, that the target was dead. Dead Alicorns don’t need horns after all.

Standing again, I brought the bag and knife over to his head, and I nearly choked on my tongue. He was wearing a bucking magical inhibitor of some sort, only thing that was strange was that it had five key holes, not three, I had never even heard of one with five key holes before…The stallion didn’t have this on yesterday…Just what the Tartarus happened overnight? Snap out of it! I had a dead stallion to process; the tip of his horn would have to-

A spear whizzed past my eyes, Tumbili dung that was too close for comfort.

Turning my head to the sea, my jaw dropped, they were here, pulling into the lagoon. I grabbed my bag, sheathed my knife and ran back the way I came. This would have to do as proof, there was no way I’m dealing with that sadistic bastard. I think he remembered our last encounter; the amount of spears he showered with was really flattering. But I had bigger bounties to cash, he could keep the body.

I wonder if I could leave the planet instead, Arch still wants to kill me, the Alicorns are going to want me dead, and the target’s mares will as well.

Retirement was looking very nice right now.